He was the original Ghost Rider. A cowboy character with many aliases: Carter Slade, Phantom Rider, Galloping Ghost, Haunted Horseman, He Who Rides the Night Winds. He will forever be associated with co-creator/artist Dick Ayers. He was even portrayed in film by Sam Elliott. But who exactly was the Night Rider? In order to understand the history of this Old West vigilante, who enjoyed a brief run in the dawn of the Bronze Age, one must time-travel back to the Golden Age, when the original version of Night Rider, called the Ghost Rider, was born. Just as the horse and buggy, at the turn of the 20th century, gave way to the automobile, so too did the original horseback version of Ghost Rider give way to the hellfire-blazing, motorcycle-riding, supernatural superhero in the leap from the Golden Age to the 1970s. But as the Silver Age sun faded into Bronze at Marvel, the original’s history was soon affected and obscured by the popularity of the modern version. Magazine Enterprises debuted the original Ghost Rider, written by Ray Krank, in Tim Holt #11 (1949). Publisher Vince Sullivan had seen budding artist Ayers’ Funnyman work. “I worked on two issues of Jimmy Durante,” Ayers says. “They didn’t sell. The whole humor thing [in comics] had died.” So Sullivan assigned Ayers Westerns. “Westerns were very popular,” explains Ayers, who was advised by Sullivan’s secretary that, in order to make a decent living as a comic-book artist, he should keep three accounts with different companies, in case one gig went under. “When I got my three accounts, it was hard to keep up with,” he says. A friend of Superman’s co-creator, artist Joe Shuster, helped Ayers out. “[Inker] Ernie Bache and I, we were a darn good team,” Ayers says. “Ray Krank, my editor, told me, ‘Dick, Vin wants the art very simple. He doesn’t want DICK all that hay.’” The goal was to emulate clean art styles found in such crowd-pleasers as Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, and Popeye. Inspired by Vaughn Moore’s 1939 hit song “Riders in the Sky,” Ghost Rider, by design, seemed to “glow in the dark,” Ayers says. He was essentially a supernatural superhero, fighting crime in a phosphorescent white costume with full-face mask, cape, and hat. “He was actually the Calico Kid, a Federal marshal who went around acting like a merchant,” explains Ayers. “He was attacked and thrown into a whirlpool. He supposedly died but ended up in a purgatory, where he met Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, and other legends and learned from them.” The character appeared in various horror-themed Western comics, on which Ayers collaborated with such scribes as Gardner Fox. His favorite Ghost writer: children’s book author Carl Memling. “He was very prolific,” Ayers recalls. “He lived in Long Island and kept a file with a synopsis of every story he created so he could resell them.” A young Frank Frazetta drew several covers. “He had a girl on each arm,” Ayers laughs. “I thought his covers were terrific. But I was the only one who worked on [the interior art].” The series apparently sold well. “Vince had us all at a big dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria,” Ayers recalls, “and he told us that Ghost Rider sold 65 percent [of its print run].”
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Haunting Horseman Detail from the cover of Ghost Rider #1 (Feb. 1967), featuring the Wild West hero whose name was later borrowed for a flame-headed cyclist. Art by Dick Ayers. © 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc.
60 • BACK ISSUE • Wild West Issue
Michael Aushenker